


Who He is and Could have been

by sanva



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e20 What Is and What Should Never Be, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanva/pseuds/sanva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary sees her son watching her during WIAWSNB.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who He is and Could have been

Mary hasn't seen either of her sons for nearly three months. Sam is off at college, Stanford, studying to become a Lawyer. He calls her every three days to tell her about his life. He's happy and in love with a young woman named Jessica.

Dean lives in town and works at the Garage that their father, her husband, used to own. Her eldest son has always been a handful and was never too interested in family. He's cleaned up his act a bit in the last few years. Carmen, his girlfriend, was good for him. Dean stopped gambling and going to bars every night when he met her. She's a nurse at the local hospital and loves kids. For all his faults Mary thinks Dean will make a great Father one day.

She's surprised when Dean shows up on her porch at two in the morning on her birthday. His eyes are wide and he looks at her as if he's never seen her before. The way he says 'Mom' unsettles something in her stomach.

Dean's eyes are always on her, following her movements as if cataloging them. Taking in everything about her as if he hasn't seen her for years. He seems confused and takes everything in the room in as if he's never seen it before.

When he asks about his father's death Mary frowns and decides it would be better to let him get some rest, he has to be drunk the way he's acting. Maybe he and Carmen had a fight. She doesn't like the way he drowns his problems in alcohol, but she still loves her son. So, she leaves him to sleep it off on her couch and goes upstairs to bed.

Dean was never one to volunteer to help around the house. More often then not he was skipping off to make trouble with friends as a kid. Mary can't imagine how much trouble he got into growing up, she doesn't want to. Missed curfews, sneaking out, girls, booze, drugs? She's not sure about the last but she's glad that eventually he did grow out of it.

She's genuinly surprised when he volunteers to mow the lawn. So much so that she sneaks into the back room and removes a silver flask of holy water from a locked chest she keeps in the guestroom closet. It's fresh holy water, she got it from the church near the grocery store two weeks ago. She gave up the life to have her family, but she can't forget what she learned.

Dean smiles sheepishly when she gives him the beer, looks almost guilty when he takes a sip of it. Mary just pats his shoulder and tells him that it's not like she hasn't seen him drink before. He just watches her with his steady gaze and wide eyes as she leaves him on the porch.

He acted oddly all evening, throughout dinner and then when they got home. She's not the only one Dean watches. His eyes watch his brother and Jessica who just flew in to wish her a happy birthday. They also announce their engagement. Mary can't ever remember Dean being quite so happy when he see's the ring on Jessica's finger.

Something woke her up that night. Instincts that had been hounded into her as a child had her creeping down the stairs in time to watch her sons have a short confrontation. Dean moves like she'd never seen him move before. Fluid and determined, graceful like a warrior. When he tells the story of his debt it feels like a lie.

As Dean takes a silver knife from her mother's old set Mary's heart skips a beat. Dean looks almost pained as he leaves and the words he says ring odd as Sam argues with him.

Mary watches the movements of her eldest son and it flashes her back to another man she met years ago, before she was married and her parents were still alive. She remembers how she woke up on November 2, 1983 because she heard a strange noise on the baby monitor.

Mary remembers taking the advice the man who her son now remarkably resembles- too much to be coincidence—to heart.

Mary remembers rolling over in bed with the pillow over her ears and the static of the baby monitor barely muffled by the fabrics.

As she listens to her youngest follow his brother out of the house behind the closed door of her room, Mary wonders who her eldest would have been if she she hadn't ignored her instincts. Mary knows though. She can't help but think that Dean might have had a better life if he had grown up the way she had.


End file.
